A Family Tribute and ScrapbookThis site is an online resource for the ancestry of Bruce Eugene Shirey and Gloria Julene Hughey, and Dr. LeRoy Cecil Mims and Nancy Grace Blackistone. This resource encompasses over 15,000 individuals including direct, collateral, and allied lines. The site also presents over 10,000 scanned images. We would like to thank all who have contributed to this ongoing project. If you have any questions, comments, information, or items to include please Contact The Site Manager.

River SpringsAs told by Linda Reno: On May 6, 1669, Elizabeth Gerard, daughter of Thomas, married Nehemiah Blackistone. As a wedding gift, Thomas Gerard gave the couple "Longworth's Point", 300 ac. and "Dare's Neck", 100 ac. (today’s Coltons Point and adjacent lands). The part of the property now known as “River Springs” contains 88 acres and is owned by Gordon and Gerard Blackistone Hughes, direct descendants of Nehemiah Blackistone and Elizabeth Gerard. There is the main residence, two cottages and a working farm.

The original [current] house was built by George Blackistone in 1841 and contained large wings on either side. During the mid to late 1800s, his son, Dr. Richard Pinkney Blackistone, used the wings of rooms as lodging for patients.

Then in the early 1900s, Robert Deminieu Blackistone Sr. converted the structure to a resort hotel with a riverside gazebo for dancing in the evenings. During the 1930s his children, Jane (Blackistone) Hughes and Robert Deminieu Blackistone, Jr., removed the wings and gazebo, and added a kitchen, three bathrooms, and a portico front porch, creating today’s “River Springs”, a private residence. (Information from the Southern Maryland Garden Tour, May 2012).

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